Big Sur will always survive fire, locals say

The karma of Big Sur: Zen practitioners, New Agers see fire as renewal

Firefighters Bob Frascona, left, and Glen Ewart of the Los Angeles County Fire Department look at the Pacific Ocean during a lunch break during their fire watch at Post Ranch Inn as the Basin Complex fire continues to burn in and around Big Sur, Calif., on Thursday, July 3, 2008 less

Firefighters Bob Frascona, left, and Glen Ewart of the Los Angeles County Fire Department look at the Pacific Ocean during a lunch break during their fire watch at Post Ranch Inn as the Basin Complex fire ... more

Photo: Kim Komenich, The Chronicle

Photo: Kim Komenich, The Chronicle

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Firefighters Bob Frascona, left, and Glen Ewart of the Los Angeles County Fire Department look at the Pacific Ocean during a lunch break during their fire watch at Post Ranch Inn as the Basin Complex fire continues to burn in and around Big Sur, Calif., on Thursday, July 3, 2008 less

Firefighters Bob Frascona, left, and Glen Ewart of the Los Angeles County Fire Department look at the Pacific Ocean during a lunch break during their fire watch at Post Ranch Inn as the Basin Complex fire ... more

Photo: Kim Komenich, The Chronicle

Big Sur will always survive fire, locals say

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There's something amid the towering redwoods and the rugged, surf-battered coast that the fire raging through Big Sur cannot destroy.

That something, locals say, is the spiritual essence of the region.

"You know what they say, Big Sur is not just a place. It's a state of mind," said Gordon Wheeler, president and chief executive officer of the Esalen Institute, the birthplace of the human potential movement. "It has to do with the rugged and challenging landscape here. It's not pretty. It's beautiful and powerful. You feel stirred when you come to Big Sur. I think everybody feels it."

In fact, a good fire could be just what this celebrated stretch of California coast needs, according to those who call it home.

"For the wilderness, this fire is a gift," said Judith Randall, the ino, or head of meditation hall, at the Tassajara Zen Mountain Center, famous for its hot springs and Buddhist retreat in the Ventana Wilderness. "There is life that is restored by the fire that can't grow any other time. Lightning strikes, the forest burns. It has nothing to do with us. Our response to what happens is what brings us suffering."

The lightning-caused fire is threatening four state parks, wilderness areas and wildlife. World-famous hot springs, monasteries, high-priced resorts, restaurants and spirituality centers, including the Esalen Institute, have been closed down.

In all, 25 miles of coastline along Highway 1, including the town of Big Sur and such destinations as the Nepenthe restaurant and the Ventana Inn, have been evacuated, and at least 17 structures have been destroyed.

The blaze, which some fear will wipe out the place that inspired the writings of Henry Miller, Jack Kerouac and others, was given the decidedly unpoetic name of Basin Complex fire. It is just one of 27 major wildfire clusters, or 1,781 fires in all, burning in California, but it is nevertheless the one that everyone's eyes are on, including vacationers from around the world.

"Big Sur is a very unique, beautiful place that has amazing biological diversity," said Kelly Sorenson, executive director of the Salinas-based Ventana Wildlife Society, which monitors 43 endangered California condors living in the Big Sur area. "It is the only place where California condors are thriving in the wild where there is a coastline. I think a lot of people also consider Big Sur to be a spiritual place."

In fact, Big Sur might be the last bastion of 1960s counterculture spirituality. Its karmic mystique began with the American Indians, who for centuries used the natural hot springs that dot the region for healing purposes.

The Spanish named the area el sur grande, or the big south, because it was the big, unexplored wilderness to the south of the mission in Monterey. The Big Sur region has no official boundary but is generally regarded as the area between Carmel and San Simeon.

The famed Tassajara Hot Springs, next to the Los Padres National Forest, served as one of the first retreats in the area. As far back as World War I, the Big Sur area was known as a refuge for pacifists and draft resisters, according to locals.

In 1962, the Esalen Institute was founded. The hippie retreat center featured cliff-side hot springs. It hosted a who's who of great writers and thinkers, including Aldous Huxley, Rollo May, psychotherapist Stanislav Grof and Gestalt therapy founder Fritz Perls.

In his novel "Big Sur," Jack Kerouac describes his own mental breakdown. Allen Ginsberg once testified to a Senate subcommittee about the spiritual frissons of an acid trip in Big Sur.

The 150-acre retreat offers teachings on subjects like Gestalt awareness, couples massage, yoga and how to find a spiritual path. Comedian John Cleese claims to have found the meaning of life in the mineral baths at Esalen.

In 1967, the San Francisco Zen Center bought the Tassajara Hot Springs and turned it into a Buddhist monastery, offering accommodations during the summer to tourists who can handle the lack of electricity and technology and a 5:30 a.m. wake-up bell.

Big Sur is home to the Benedictine monks of New Camaldoli Hermitage. The area's mountains and coast also nurture an American Indian worship center, a Christian youth camp and several other spiritual retreats.

The inland forests, hills and valleys are as spiritually powerful as the shrines built by humans, Randall said.

"The beauty and power of the ocean meeting those mountains, I think of it as breathtaking," she said. "I don't think you can underestimate the restorative power of the redwoods, the ocean, the light."

Randall said the hot springs at Esalen and at Tassajara are gifts from Mother Earth, and the mountain range is her bosom.

"It cradles," said Randall. "I feel cradled and sheltered."

She felt that, at least, until June 25, when the fire raced through the forest toward the retreat and she had to be evacuated.

Fifty-seven people at Esalen, including several neighbors, ignored the evacuation order and are staying at the compound. With all 126 guest rooms vacant, they are providing food from the institute's vegetable crop to 23 firefighters and any other hungry folk who show up, Wheeler said.

As of Thursday afternoon, the fire remained roughly three miles to the west of Esalen.

Wheeler believes Big Sur will make it, just as it did during the 1985 Rat Creek Fire and the 1998 battering by El Niño storms.

"Big Sur will always be here," Wheeler said. "It will recover."

Even if it burns, Randall said, its karmic spirit will remain intact, and we humans will just have to cope.

"This is not something to be angry about or upset about," Randall said. "Breathe into it, acknowledge it and let it go. Then we can do what we need to do with a clear mind."